Case Number 19158

Collapse

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All Rise...

Judge Adam Arseneau is cashing out all his long-term investments. Why? Umm, no reason.

The Charge

It's happened to every great civilization.

Opening Statement

Collapse may be the scariest documentary you'll ever see. It also may
be the craziest. Be it truth or truthiness, this is a riveting film from start
to finish.

Facts of the Case

Banks, governments, and industries were devastated by the recent global
economic collapse. Who could have predicted it? As it turns out, Michael
Ruppert, aformer Los Angeles police department turned rogue reporter, did. His
prophetic prediction of the upcoming collapse garnered the attention of
millions. Now Ruppert is warning of a new meltdown: the end of oil. Is Ruppert
foreshadowing the end of our society, or is he just a crazed paranoid conspiracy
theorist?

The Evidence

Shot in a single room with a single interview subject, interjected with stock
footage of apocalyptic news footage and set to a brooding orchestral theme,
Collapse is an unsettling, even terrifying film. It rivals the most terse
and well-plotted narrative thrillers in its levels of complexity and compelling
narrative. Even if you don't find yourself drinking the Kool-Aid entirely, it's
almost impossible to ignore the prophetic musings of Ruppert, who delivers his
ideological observations with passion and well-assembled logical arguments.

As doomsayers go, Michael Ruppert may be the best in the world. Critics
deride him as an alarmist, a conspiracy theorist, a crazy person hurling wild
accusations, stringing together logical fallacies to justify his bleak world
view. If that were true, he'd be a lot easier to dismiss. The terrifying thing
about Ruppert, and indeed, about Collapse is that Michael Ruppert speaks
the truth—some of it, anyway. This documentary, simplistic and stylish,
creeps down your back like an ice cube. It makes your karma cower in fear. Wild
accusations are easy to shrug off; Collapse gets under your skin like a
parasite.

If you believe every word Ruppert says, things look bleak indeed. Our
society runs on oil, not just for fuel but as a transformational element, solely
responsible for rocketing us into the modern age. Forget the cost of a fill-up
for your SUV. Think about the rubber tires, the plastic components, the circuit
boards, the oil-powered machines responsible for mining the metal and running
the electricity that powers the engineering computers that designed the vehicle
itself. Every single element of every single product in modern society is
inherently and inexorably tied to oil. It seems reasonable to assume then that
the decline of a society built on oil will coincide when the oil runs out.

So why is no one listening to Ruppert? In a word, he's crazy, both in the
pejorative and laudatory sense of the word. He has enthusiasm and passion for
his subject, a deep and profound working knowledge of the inner workings of
government. He believes. He gets animated discussing it, desperate to convince
others that the world as we know it is coming to an end—which is where he
runs into trouble. The man has managed to assemble a surprisingly detailed and
logically sound argument to support his case, true, but at the end of the day,
he's one of Those Guys. The ones you see with the placard signs on the street
corners in Times Square, shouting about Revelations. He is a well-read,
educated, and remarkably persuasive doomsayer, to be certain…but a
doomsayer all the same.

Filmmaker Chris Smith (American
Movie, The Yes Men) handles Ruppert the
best way possible—he turns on the camera and lets him talk. Occasionally,
we hear a voice (presumably Smith) interject or ask a sobering question, a kind
of logical levelheaded challenge to Ruppert's frantic conjecture. If you believe
the introduction to the film, it seems Smith discovered Ruppert by accident,
interviewing him on a different subject and film. Realizing what an amazing
individual they had on their hands, Collapse was born. If true, this is
the kind of documentary I adore so much. Like an investigative journalist,
Collapse goes where the story is. As stories go, you can't get much
bigger than the end of society as we know it.

Collapse has an impressively sharp transfer. The singular shooting
location is beautifully lit with deep, mysterious shadows and the constant
stream of chain-smoked cigarettes is beautifully shot. For a documentary, there
is some serious cinematography at work. Interjected with the expected amount of
stock footage and news clips, Collapse varies in quality based on the
source material, but the primary material looks great—sharp, clean,
slightly grey-toned black levels and muted colors; very suited to the tone of
the film. Audio is a 5.1 Dolby Digital track, which is relatively unremarkable.
Dialogue is clear and clean, and the throbbing orchestral score is almost
frenzied in its urgency, like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It is always
appreciated to have the full surround treatment, but rear channels go relatively
unused.

Extras are standard. We get a trailer, deleted scenes and a Collapse
update, a newly recorded featurette with Ruppert discussing current world events
since the recording of the film in 2009.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Ranging wildly from lunatic desperation to cold persuasiveness, Ruppert
himself is an enigma; a confusing jumble of authority and alarmism. Can it be
possible that the only person who knows the truth about the state of affairs in
the world is an unemployed man behind on his rent? When I mentioned that
personal fact, does your skepticism increase or decrease in regard to his
prophetic claims?

In the end, the status of the world remains an unknown variable. The only
thing in "collapse" that can be validated and measured seems to be
Ruppert himself, now a broken and embittered man whose obsession has driven him
to personal, financial, and emotional ruin. The root of Collapse is
deciding whether this knowledge makes Ruppert's prophetic vision of the future
more or less credible—a frustrating and delightful revelation in of
itself.

Closing Statement

Staggering in scope, alarmist in tone, Collapse is a must-see film, a
magnificent feat of documentary filmmaking. Whether you believe Ruppert's claims
or not (and hey, in a few years, it'll be a moot question), Collapse
brings more terror, dread, and anxiety to the small screen than a Hollywood
blockbuster with a multimillion dollar budget could ever hope to invoke.